Python: Find the item with maximum occurrences in a given list

Last update on June 28 2025 12:46:58 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

Find Most Frequent Item in List

Write a Python program to find the item with the most occurrences in a given list.

Visual Presentation:

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

# Define a function 'max_occurrences' that finds the item with the maximum occurrences in a list
def max_occurrences(nums):
    # Initialize 'max_val' to 0 and 'result' to the first item in the list
    max_val = 0
    result = nums[0]
    
    # Iterate through the elements in the 'nums' list
    for i in nums:
        # Count the occurrences of the current element 'i' in the list
        occu = nums.count(i)
        
        # Check if the number of occurrences is greater than the current maximum
        if occu > max_val:
            # Update 'max_val' and 'result' if a higher occurrence is found
            max_val = occu
            result = i
    
    # Return the item with the maximum occurrences
    return result

# Create a list 'nums' with integers
nums = [2,3,8,4,7,9,8,2,6,5,1,6,1,2,3,4,6,9,1,2]

# Print a message indicating the original list
print ("Original list:")
# Print the contents of the 'nums' list
print(nums)

# Print a message indicating the item with the maximum occurrences in the list
print("\nItem with maximum occurrences of the said list:")
# Call the 'max_occurrences' function with 'nums' and print the result
print(max_occurrences(nums)) 

Sample Output:

Original list:
[2, 3, 8, 4, 7, 9, 8, 2, 6, 5, 1, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 1, 2]

Item with maximum occurrences of the said list:
2

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a Python program to find the least frequent item in a list.
• Write a Python program to count occurrences of all elements in a list.
• Write a Python program to find the top three most frequent elements.
• Write a Python program to remove elements appearing more than a given frequency.

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• Python Data Type List Exercises Home ↩
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